 Welcome to another edition of Dog Talk and Coffee with me, Richard Hines. Welcome to another episode of Dog Talk and Coffee with me, Richard Hines. And today I have my big cup of coffee. Not those little espresso's that I love. So, today's subject is going to be about obedience. And a lot of people ask me all the time, how do you get that speed in obedience? Down. They sit. Back. Down. They come. Sit. They back. Down. They come. Sit. Down. Sit. Down. Finish. Down. Sit. They come. Sit. Down. Down. And is it necessary? Okay, so let me first, because this leads into that. My own dogs, puppies, adults, whatever it's going to be. I personally start with food first. Positive, okay? So, I want their base positively done, because for me, I want a lot of flash and speed and power and enthusiasm, okay? Where as if I start with a client, most of my clients have done food before and the results are very weak. And that is because it takes a lot of good skill and technical abilities to do positive obedience well, okay? It is easy to just go sit and give a treat down and give a treat, okay? But it takes a lot of art and high skill, right, to get a dog the way I expect him to be in my system, okay? Has anybody out there seen me, knows me, seen my past videos? Down. Sit. Down. Sit. Finish. Right in front. Down. Sure. Right? It's very fast. It's enthusiastic. It's precise, okay? And anybody that I take to my system that is going to be a trainer, Zoom. So for example, here, Michael, the one that I've been working with in France through Zoom, you know, through my instructional videos and one-on-one, this is the kind of obedience that I expect. Sit. Plot. Plot. Sit. Plot. Nice. Finish. Plot. Sit. Yes. Yes. Okay. Now, Michael's dogs here are still the beginning kind of, right? They need some polishing. They haven't really been doing obedience consistently, so what you're seeing here is the first time he's been doing obedience with him in months. So they're a little rusty, okay? But for being rusty, this is phenomenal stuff, right? But it's the speed and the fluency of the word that we tell them that they understand to do and differentiate from the words of what we're asking. And quickly, making the brain fast, okay? So why is that important? Well, when you teach obedience that way, you keep dogs enthusiastic, okay? You keep them motivated. You keep them driven. They enjoy obedience. They love the challenge of it, okay? And most people lack speed when they're working with their dogs, even with food. It's very rare that you see people, trainers, able to get dogs to be that fast and do different things consistently in a row, right? With that level of speed and accuracy, okay? Now, and I go to this all the time, okay? Where especially working dogs, the shepherds, the Dutch shepherds, the Malawas, okay? Where their brains can be so fast when they have that high working genetic. But most owners are not fast enough mentally or physically, okay? So they'll go down and they ask for something and the dog does it and then walks away and starts going away and doing those things. And then the person gets ready to go do another command and they ask for something and the dog's ready, sniffing now, when he's checked out and comes over and, huh, what was that? And they go do it and they'll give a treat and it's very laxadaisical. It's not an energy that is matching the dog. So I always tell everybody, you must pick up and you need to get at it. Sit down here over here, but you need to be ahead of it. You need to make the dog catch you in obedience, not the dog. Oh, here we go again. Oh man, this person's so slow, like he's killing me, right? And they take a treat and the dog goes, okay, I'm leaving. Just let me know when you get that treat out of your pocket or your thing again and you're ready to tell me something else when you're ready. But I'm going to go over here and do things and I'll be back when you're ready. And that's what happens a lot, right? In most cases, the people are just not mentally fast enough and physically fast enough to keep up with these certain types of driven dogs. So we get, okay, obedience out of them, right? Nothing flashy, they do it, okay? And then you're just going to get some people who hit the jackpot, right? Where just even somebody in the public who doesn't know anything about dog training and there's going down fluffy and this. And they get such a spirited, enthusiastic poodle, right? Or a golden doodle and without any real skill on the person's part. Once the dog figures out that they're going to lean over and give them a treat, the dog starts anticipating very quickly. They're very enthusiastic, okay, with a certain type that happens. Now, the problem though with that is the dog will do that one command fast like a down. But they don't, there's no parrying. Sit down, sit here, finish, right there. There's no linking of commands. It's just the one command they're good at, right? Knowing that it's coming. So it's a facade. It was an accident. Now, if that person was up on their game and was ready, let's go sit down. Yes, come on, come and keep engaged and do your commands, right? And you got to make sure that your technical abilities and obedience are very good. So it's not easy to do this level of obedience, this kind of obedience. Well, it's rare you see it. It also makes dogs for life do their commands very well. Okay, even when there's no food and no pressure like an e-collar or whatever, you know, added to its endgame. So for me, right, we get this fast, enthusiastic, over to see happy, energized. Yes, tell me, tell me, tell me. And then I start applying when they're really good at all this little e-collar pressure to just make it mandatory. Give them reward while adding some e-collar to it where it's not bothering them. They're just doing it and they're doing it just as fast, the enthusiasm. Just letting know there will be some pressure now because, of course, positive traders, you know, want to blow this off, right? Like it doesn't exist. And of course it exists. That if there's no pressure applied, you're just getting a performance dog, a circus animal that will perform only when it knows it's the time for reward. Okay, like again, I buy tons of sport dogs. I got to redo them, put real protection, real obedience because it's not real. Okay, I got to redo everything for real life. I'm a real life guy. I'm not, that's why you don't see me do sports because I don't want to waste time going to do sports and doing things that don't apply to real life. The obedience doesn't apply to real life. The protection doesn't apply to real life in Shutsun or any of the sports. So I don't want to waste my time doing things that don't apply to life and I have to redo. But I have no choice when I buy shepherds. So when we get them, they're ball done, food done, right? And it's every time, it's very rare that we buy one even with titles on them that they ever listen, right, without a ball or a toy. It's rare, okay? I know even if it's the highest levels of titles, I'm going to have my hands full. So I tell my breeders, please don't give me titles. I want the least training you have, right, because I don't want to redo everything. I need a dog for real life. I don't play in, you know, the fake land. Okay, and I know the public really doesn't understand. How could obedience be different real life to sport? It's very different, right? Protection to real protection, very different, right? The exercises don't even apply to real life. It's a game, okay? You've got to redo everything. The exercises, the mentality, but it's all positively done mainly, okay? So to hold that, you need some pressure so that when you're out in life with your dog, the dog just doesn't go, yeah, you know, no treat, no ball, obedience is not my thing. You know, I'll wait till we get home and then you pull the treats out and the ball and then I'll probably work for you if I'm in the mood, okay? And that's what people get stuck with. Over and over and over and over. Now, you may get lucky if a dog's been working for years and over and over and positive, positive, positive, positive, positive, but it's a certain type of dog, a rare dog that just listens all the time, never having pressure, okay? That's rare. And you also want to be cautious, right? When that dog's life depends on it that you're not gambling its life. That's why pressure also comes in in the later stages to finish up obedience because if we ever need something to save that dog's life, we want to make sure it complies. It's not a mood, right? That the dog right now is just not in the mood. That can't exist. Then we have a dog who is partially trained. Depends on the environment, depends on his mood, depends on, right? Ask anybody who's gone through his positive training when people come around if they can control the dog. 99% of dogs that just go through positive training, the people cannot control them in the environments, in all environments. The dog will only listen depending, okay? So it's very important that pressure gets laid in the end to a degree to make reliability, okay? Now, but going back to purely positive for me in the beginning, getting that flair, getting that enthusiasm, getting that style, getting that attitude, that's what it's about, okay? But when I work with clients 101, I rarely do food because it's going to be torture for me to try to teach them good technique, okay? Now, if they just do some things like sit in a very simple sit and down, that kind of thing is not my thing. But I understand it's functional. Most people in the world don't want flashy fancy. They don't care, right? For me as an expert and I'm driven by performance, right? It drives me to get high levels of things because it shows great skill, right? That is when you know somebody's got skill and it drives me to get the best out of my dogs, to make them the happiest and highly skilled, okay? So for me, I don't settle for anything but the speed and the fancy and the flair and the, okay? But it also for the long term of lasting, the memory, lifetime of reliability. Again, then adding a little pressure to it to make sure that's the case. Okay, but again, it's work. With somebody who doesn't want flair, doesn't care, they just want the dog to do things. We're going remote, right? Without food. The only one I'll do food with for the client is down food first and then to down with the e-collar, okay? But the sits, the comes, the stays, bed, those things, you know, will be done remotely. Maybe bed I'll do positive first and then add e-collar. So because we have so many classes in a program, people don't want to work hard at this, right? 25 years I've been doing this, it's the majority of my clients, right? They don't want to work hard at this. They just want the dog to do something when they tell them. They don't want the flair, they don't care, they don't want to work at that. If I say sit, just sit. If I say down to you, just down. They're not looking for a shell, right? A circus hat of all style and this and that and that and that, right? They're a rigor-average people, okay? And I see tons and tons and tons and tons of trainers who do obedience and it's very basic, right? And even their own dogs, it's very, but that's okay, right? It's okay. It's my style and I want the best of my dogs, okay? And if a client wants to go there and they're willing to put the work in, I'll do it. I'll take them there, okay? It's going to be a lot more effort. It takes a lot more to get them to be skilled and stay ahead of the dog and stay good with energy. So me, preferably, I'd rather go e-collar with them and just get this over with, okay? And now people will say, but, Richard, we can get the spirit with the e-collar, too. Through your method, we've got the spirit, absolutely. You can still get fast right through my method of e-collar. Sit. Good boy. Come. Sit. I'm just pairing things, though, and getting more fancy when I start with the positive first. But absolutely, if you just go straight e-collar, you can get speed, right? Really good, precise, for sure, okay? Through positive, I want that, okay? So that is why when I also hear, oh, it's positive, it's positive. We go positive. We teach people positive. We teach both. And I've seen all the schools. I've seen firsthand all the schools that teach positive. And it's rough. It's rough to watch, right? Because come on, come on. And they're doing things and the dog's even for food and highly motivated. The dog looks like he's suffering, right? Because the owners are so slow and it's just kind of a mess, right? And the dog might do things, but sluggish and it looks... And this is with food, okay? So if you are interested, I have positive instructional videos on my platform, my website. Teaching how to get that done and do the commands correctly with the positive. To get that speed, to get the technique, okay? And then to mix commands, very important. Sit down, stand if you want, finish the bed, to hear it, to come, to stop there, right? All types of different patterns. Mixing all these commands together is one routine. Really drives dogs, motivates them, makes them think. Remember in human world, dogs really lack a lot of mental stimulation. Most people just let dogs live, right? They just let them live. They just live with them and just let them live. Give them something here and there to play with or whatever. But they're never challenging the dog, never stimulating their minds, never making them motivated, giving them something to look forward to, okay? And dogs thrive on that most, okay? You're going to get some really lazy ones with no energy and they're just not that kind of dog and they could care less and those are the ones that are perfect e-collar candidate all the way. Okay? Once it don't have such motivation or you can't motivate them because a lot of dogs that appear like they don't have it, you can still pull it if you have good technique and get the right motivators. But you're going to get a lot that don't have that motivator or that engine, right? To do positive obedience or be motivated with anything. Get chicken this, okay? So those ones are perfect, perfect for the e-collar. Just get it done, okay? So it takes a lot of skill, really good technique, then knowing how to combine commands properly, just fading the food, variableing the rewards to get the proper performance, going from every time to when to treat properly at what moment during what command. So there's a lot that goes into that to do well, okay? So yes, love the positive game, love the positive obedience to me personally. I do it with all my puppies and dogs as a base. But to do well, it does take somebody to be energetic, to be fast-minded, sit, come here, right, to match the dog, to be ahead of it, or else you're going to get so-so results, okay? And that's also why most trainers themselves stick with just basic old obedience, even with their own dogs, down the downs. It's good. He did it. You know, lacks flair, locks anything, but hey, he did it, right? Come, he comes, he mows, he gets there. You know, at least he's doing it, stay. At least he sat there and he stays, right? So that's not my thing. I want... Right, but hey, you know, it's their style, okay? Well, a lot of trainers I know, most people I know are not that motivated to get that out of their dogs. They don't care. Even most trainers I've met don't care, okay? So it takes a special touch and special skill and technique to get dogs to have that kind of thing. So I wanted to answer that question because people always ask me, Richard, what do you do? E-color first or food? E-food, my clients, E-color, okay? And that is the reason why. So again, if you're interested, I have the instructions of teaching the positive, of how to do down, come, sit, stay, go to your bed, and then have an E-color series as well to just do the commands with E-color or touch up with E-color. You can just use it for that. All right? So I hope that clears it up. I'm Richard Hines and I will see you on the next video.